


The three times Raphael swore he was being stalked

by Languidly



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:54:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24438502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Languidly/pseuds/Languidly
Summary: A pinprick of nothing he could define, other than the helpless feeling that he was definitely beingwatched, damnit.
Relationships: Leonardo/Raphael (TMNT)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 67





	The three times Raphael swore he was being stalked

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The first time he felt it, Raphael was on his way back from a night out with Casey. 

They had encountered a small group of thugs drunkenly smashing their way into a corner store, and it almost had him rolling his eyes at how easy it had been to pick them up and deposit them back outside, wrists and ankles hog-tied to each other so that they made a comical quartet groaning and rolling on the ground. He’d been a little careless in his amused annoyance - had gotten a cut that was slightly more than a scrape on his upper arm when Casey had been thrown against him and he’d been pushed back onto a shard of broken window glass - and had been debating how long he should keep the bandage Casey had foisted upon him because god forbid the Fearless Leader should see and then he would never hear the end of it -

Someone was watching him. 

It was an almost-eerie sensation, settling at the back of his neck as he trudged through the dark alley. Hostile? Human? The latter should have resulted in a gasp or a scream by now, and the former...Raphael smiled grimly as he thumbed a sai.

The gaze vanished, almost as quickly as it had come, and he whirled around, eyes darting to the top of the surrounding buildings, the end of the street, to see...absolutely nothing.

\---

The second time he felt it, he almost chalked it up to a figment of his imagination. Mainly because his imagination tended to go a little wild when he had been drinking.

Casey was singing boisterously from his corner of the roof, wildly strumming his air guitar, and Raphael was tempted to join in if not for the fact that it would surely ruin his reputation...and then there it was again.

A pinprick of nothing he could define, other than the helpless feeling that he was definitely being _watched_ , damnit. 

The bright lights of the city danced across his vision, making him feel vaguely nauseous. He closed his eyes, scrubbed his face vigorously with the back of his hand, and thought of movie tropes. A new surveillance system in the sky? Drones? There were no fixed cameras around here - he knew that much, since he and Casey swept this rooftop regularly to ensure it remained as a suitable hangout - so the only explanation would be if a new enemy had appeared and was staking out the city’s two-man vigilante force with flying robots. 

But then this would have been a perfect time to capture them, study the mutant and all. He had drunk way too much to put up anything resembling a fight, and his stomach was beginning to roil in a decidedly unpleasant way. He fumbled as he tried to remember where he had left his sais. Ah, that’s right, he had used one to pop open a bottle cap earlier, and then set it down...where had he set it down? 

The glare on the back of his head intensified, and he whipped around, instantly regretting his speed as he lost his balance and fell on his ass. 

The presence disappeared into the smoky air. 

\---

He stopped self-consciously at the door to Donatello’s lab, wondering if he had officially gone crazy or if this was at all a legitimate threat that had to be handled. His brother looked up immediately, quizzical and bug-eyed behind his glasses, and Raphael steeled himself and bit the bullet.

“Don...I think I’ve been seen. And followed. Am being followed.”

His brother frowned. “What makes you think so?”

Well, here went crazy. “I’ve been feeling somethin'...lookin' at me. When I’m out. It comes and sorta stays awhile, and then it goes, and I haven’t been able ta see what it is.”

Donatello’s eyes narrowed. “When did it start?”

He didn’t know whether to be surprised or glad that his brother was taking him seriously. “Uh, the first time was maybe a month ago? When Case and I fixed the corner store incident. I didn’t say anythin' because, uh, it didn’t seem like anythin' and nothin' happened really. The second time was a week ago, when-” he fought not to let any embarrassment show, “-when I stayed over at Case’ after patrollin'. We were on the roof.” He would _not_ say he had gotten drunk and spent the night puking into Casey’s toilet. Even if it had probably been obvious when he had blearily come home at dawn the next day, reeking of alcohol and self-inflicted desolation. 

Donatello stared at him thoughtfully, pen tapping on the table. “Nothing in between? You’ve been out a dozen times in the last month.”

“Nothin' in between,” he confirmed, racking his brain for anything he might have missed but coming up empty. “At least, nothin' that I noticed,” he amended gloomily. 

“I’ll check it out,” Donatello promised, sticking the pen in his mouth and turning back to the computer. “In the meantime, stay low, Raph. Check in with Casey to see if he’s noticed anything? Let me know right away if he’s seen something too.”

He nodded, falling away from the door he’d been leaning on, hands already going automatically to his Shell-Cell to send a text to Casey-

-and he bumped straight into Leonardo, who had been standing there with his arms crossed over his chest, mouth set in a thin line. 

“Trouble?” his elder brother enquired pleasantly. 

Raphael could feel his hackles start to rise. “None of ya business,” he snapped, side-stepping Leonardo. Leonardo had probably heard everything and was now wondering if Raphael had lost his mind or worse, inadvertently caught the attention of an enemy that now knew that _mutant ninja turtles_ lived in the city and were coming for them and it would all be Raphael’s fault, as usual, and-

He jerked to a stop as a laser beam of focus settled on his back, along with a dead silence. 

_One heartbeat, two heartbeats, three heartbeats, four…_

And then Leonardo strolled past him, all casual indifference, calling sternly to Donatello as he went, “You report to me if you find a threat, Donny.” Donatello mm-hmmed without even looking away from the screen, and Raphael forced himself to unclench his fists and relax, taking a deep breath. 

Another. And then another. And then another. 

His heart was thundering in his ears and he could feel a flush creeping up his neck.

_That...that sneaking...stalking...superior excuse of an...ASSHOLE -!_


End file.
